The featured Conference Keynote Speaker and Festival Scholar-in-Residence is Tony Simotes, one of the Founding Members and current Artistic Director for Shakespeare & Company. Now in their 36th season, Shakespeare & Company in the Berkshire Hills in Lenox, Massachusetts, is one of the largest and best known Shakespeare Festivals in the United States. Simotes has either performed in or directed over two dozen productions for Shakespeare & Company during the past three decades. He is also a Master Teacher of Fight and Movement and has been one of the Company¹s Artistic Associates since 1995. For Shakespeare & Company he has directed such productions as Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and Two Gentlemen of Verona to name a few. His work as a fight choreographer and director has been featured coast to coast, from the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles to the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theater. Recent directing credits include The Nerd for Madison Repertory Theatre and Fight Direction for Macbeth at Orlando Shakespeare Theatre.

The conference also features:

A performance of The Comedy of Errors by the GVSU Shakespeare Festival